


A Million Times Over

by along_those_lines



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Crack, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, PlanceMiniBang2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 14:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20027161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/along_those_lines/pseuds/along_those_lines
Summary: Lance McClain, famous actor and American Heartthrob, is worried about his Agent Pidge. She works herself to death. In an attempt to help her relax, he plans a vacation for the two of them, and gets way more than he bargained for. fluff, angst, and hilarity ensue.





	1. The Workaholic

**Author's Note:**

> Hello All!  
This fic was written for Plance Mini Bang 2019. The requirement was for it to be 5k words, and you'll see by the time I get all the chapters up that I got a little carried away.  
Anyway, HUGE thanks to my beta reader, @dreams-of-kalopsia on tumblr, for helping me through this journey. You've been nothing but supportive, and your comments and reactions have been my motivation, thank you!  
I hope you guys enjoy the story.

“Pidge. Honey. Baby,” Lance purred as he sauntered over to where Pidge was working behind her standing desk. She scoffed in a tone both annoyed and incredulous when her clingiest and most troublesome client managed to be tall enough to almost sit on her _ standing _desk.

“What did you do now, Lance?” She finished the sentence in the contract she was typing before turning to face him, knowing full well that he got antsy easily if he wasn’t getting enough attention.

Lance looked sheepish, a look that Pidge unfortunately was often on the receiving end of. She swore almost daily that she would drop him as a client one day, but she could never actually bring herself to do it. “I may need you to talk to Keith again. He tried to fire me on set today.”

“Again?” Pidge sighed, exasperated. “Lance, you have to stop taunting him. Do you know how many strings I had to pull to get you on this movie? Kogane is the hottest up-and-coming director; working with him will instantly blow you up to an A-lister. Can’t you just play nice for _ one _day of shooting?” She held up an index finger in front of his face to emphasize her point. “That’s all I’m asking. Just one!”

Lance batted her finger out of the air, rolling his eyes as he replied, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you would ever come _ see _me on set then maybe you would know that he instigates like, ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“Yeah, like you _ never _get on anyone’s nerves. Who would ever be frustrated with the charming Lance McClain?” Pidge laid the sarcasm on thick, but even then, it took Lance a minute.

He preened, crossing his arms over his chest proudly. “Yup, that’s right, I am… Hey, wait a minute.” He looked down at her and pouted, his brain finally catching up to what she had said. Pidge laughed good-naturedly, remembering once again why half of the women in America swooned over his face.

It was moments like these that reminded Pidge why she didn’t drop Lance as a client. Lance was charismatic and spontaneous, almost to an extreme, but those traits were what made him such a great actor, and what made him thrive in the cut-throat world that was Hollywood. But what America didn’t see was the soft, quiet side of Lance McClain. How he would stand for hours outside of the airport meeting fans and signing autographs until Pidge had to physically drag him away, effectively making her the bad guy in the eyes of his fanbase. He truly wanted to do everything for his fans, and surprisingly, meeting them never served to boost his already inflated ego. Rather, he typically grew especially somber after meeting fans, a trait about him that perplexed Pidge to this day, even after working with him for nearly 8 years.

Pidge’s phone started ringing and she picked it up, immediately holding a finger up to Lance to stop him from talking for a moment.

“This is Pidge. Start talking,” she answered in her usual fashion, not even bothering to check the caller ID.

“Pidge.” She immediately recognized Keith’s voice, having had many extensive conversations with him in order to get Lance on his current project. “I can’t work with Lance anymore.”

Pidge sighed. “Keith, I know Lance can be hard to work with sometimes, but even you have to admit that he’s perfect for the part,” she reasoned, knowing that if she played her cards right she could get him to cave.

“I don’t care if he could play the whole cast as a freaking one-man show. If he doesn’t remove his head from his rear end long enough to stop flirting with the caterers _ while we’re shooting _, then he’s out.”

Pidge turned to glare at Lance. He gave her an angelic look, obviously having no idea what was being said on the other end of the line. She covered the receiver of her cell phone to whisper-yell at him, “You were flirting with the caterer again?!”

Lance shrugged, a light bulb lighting up when he realized the grievance that Keith had against him. He whisper-yelled back at her, “She catered for _ ‘Riptide’ _ too; I had to at least say hi.”

Pidge rolled her eyes, pulled her hand back from the receiver to talk to Keith again, and pasted a smile on her face to try and force a cheerful tone into her voice even if Keith couldn’t see it. “I guarantee that I’ll talk to him personally, and that he won’t cause you any more trouble.” She gave Lance another pointed glare, which he pretended not to see. “But we have a contract Keith. If you can’t cooperate with us then I _ will _ take you to court, and I promise you… you don’t want me to take you to court.”

There was a heavy pause while Keith surely debated with himself on the lesser of two evils: playing nice with Lance, or facing Pidge in court. Eventually he sighed. “You win this round. But if he pulls any more crap when we shoot again next week, I won’t hesitate to fire him.”

“I understand. Thanks, Keith. Are you coming to the reunion on Sunday?” Pidge abruptly switched directions. Lance stood from leaning on her desk and made to head towards the door now that he was no longer the topic of conversation. Pidge snapped her fingers, calling him back before he left because she certainly wasn’t done with him. Lance sulked as he leaned on the desk once more.

Keith laughed half-heartedly over the phone. “Yeah, I guess I’ll drop by. See ya, Pidge.” The phone clicked as Keith hung up.

Pidge turned on Lance, ready to chew him out, but her phone rang again.

“I’m not done with you, so don’t even think about leaving.” Again she pointed a finger in his face to emphasize her point, before answering her phone.

Six lengthy phone calls later, her phone finally took a brief pause from its constant ringing. At least long enough for her to finally look up and notice that Lance had stolen the lion-shaped stress ball from her desk and was now lying on the floor throwing it towards the ceiling and catching it again repeatedly.

“Alright, now to deal with you.”

Lance caught the ball before demurely folding his hands over his stomach and looking up at her expectantly. Pidge was formulating her speech in her head when her phone started ringing again. She cursed as she looked at the caller ID, realizing that she really did need to take this call.

Lance sighed. “Why don’t you just call me when you’re done? I’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half and I’m getting hungry.”

Pidge sighed, too. “Okay, I’ll call you when I’m finished. Go eat.” She waved him out of her office as she answered her phone once more with her usual greeting.

Lance walked out of her office feeling rather smug, feeling like he had just dodged a bullet. In reality he knew that taking calls all afternoon would only agitate her further, and she would likely be even more irate with him once she finally got around to dealing with him. But for now he felt a small sense of accomplishment in avoiding her wrath, even if it was only postponed and he didn’t really have anything to do with it.

Deciding to walk to his favorite local café, he pulled the hood of his jacket over his face and started down the several blocks between the agency where Pidge’s office resided and the Voltron Café down the street.

He wasn’t recognized on the way to the café, a small blessing as Pidge would have his hide if he ended up in another tabloid before she was able to smooth things over with Keith. It didn’t matter whether it was good or bad; anything might tip his agent over the edge at this point. She was so overwhelmed and busy at all hours of the day that Lance often thought she could use a break. He less often thought of how his actions might affect her day to day life. He grimaced as he wondered how much of her time he had doubtlessly wasted.

Taking up a booth near the back of the establishment and removing the hood from the top of his head, he was soon helped by a waitress who recognized him as a regular patron rather than a famous actor. The Voltron Café had the best garlic knots in the city, and Lance had been craving them all day. 

After placing his order, Lance pulled out his phone to go through his social media accounts. Pidge was always getting onto him about his social media habits. As much as Lance was an extrovert, social media had simply never been his thing. Pidge highly encouraged (read forced) him to keep up his social media accounts, and for her sake, he did. But that didn’t mean he had to enjoy it. The waitress brought him his drink. 

So engrossed was he in his social media smorgasbord of professions of love mixed in with memes and the occasional death threat that he didn’t even notice that someone had sat down with him until they started speaking. 

“Not bothering with disguises today, I see?” Shiro’s deep timbre caught Lance off guard, and he physically jumped in his chair. 

“Shiro! I didn’t see you come in. And yeah, I didn’t really wanna deal with the hassle of wearing it while I eat. What’s the paparazzi gonna say anyway? ‘Lance likes garlic knots and eating with friends.’” Lance mimed reading a headline in the air before shrugging. “Doesn’t seem all that tabloid-worthy.” He took a long sip of his drink. 

Shiro chuckled in response. “I guess that’s true enough. How’s Pidge?” 

Lance held his hand to his chest, pulling an offended look and tone. “Uh, what about me? Don’t you want to know how I am, Shiro?” 

Shiro laughed again. “Fine, how are _ you, _ Lance?”

“I’m fine, but Pidge… I’m starting to get a little worried about her.”

The conversation took on a more somber turn as Lance’s concerns came to the forefront of his mind. He couldn’t lie and tell Shiro that he hadn’t noticed the bags under her eyes getting increasingly darker over the past couple months, or the fact that she often would contact him via email at ridiculous hours late at night, and then again at ridiculous hours early in the morning. He was beginning to wonder if she slept at all. Lance sighed as the thought crossed his mind that Shiro asking whether Pidge was okay before anything else was also telling of how her family and close friends were reacting to her new work habits. 

“How’s she doing?” 

“She’s working herself to the bone. Sometimes literally. Have you seen her calluses from writing recently?”

Shiro shook his head before nodding for Lance to continue. 

“She doesn’t sleep, she doesn’t eat, and when I do see her doing one, she’s either sleeping at her desk—her _ standing desk _, mind you—or shoving a Go-GURT down her gullet before we go for our morning run. She’s taking on a lot of new clients, which is great and all, but there isn’t enough time in the day for one person to feasibly do all of the work she’s doing by herself. Even if it’s Pidge.”

Shiro nodded again, making sure Lance was finished with his miniature rant before speaking. “I’m worried about her too. She says she’s coming to the family reunion on Sunday, but she had bailed on the last three events we had. I hear more about her from you than I do from her.”

Lance thought back to what he knew of Shiro’s history with the Holt family. Shiro and Matt, Pidge’s older brother, had been roommates at UCLA and had since become business partners as producers. At one point, during a rough patch in their careers, both Shiro and Keith had been taken in by the Holts. Since then, they had been considered family and had regular reunions in the suburbs of LA where they all grew up.

Lance was proud to say that as Pidge’s first and oldest client he had slowly broken into the Holt family circle, and much like Shiro and Keith, he considered Pidge’s parents as his own. He unfortunately hadn’t been invited to the event this Sunday though, a fact he was still slightly salty about. Regardless, the fact that Shiro wasn’t hearing from Pidge was also concerning. Pidge loved her family more than anything else; to learn that she wasn’t telling Shiro what she had been up to lately just proved that she knew she wasn’t taking care of herself. 

He groaned, laying his head into his hands. “What do I do, Shiro? I want to help her but I don’t know how. Whenever I try to help I know I’m just getting in the way. Not to mention the fact that I’m usually causing problems on top of that as well.”

Lance glumly thanked the waitress once again as she brought him his garlic knots. He pushed the plate towards Shiro, indicating that the older man should take one, which Shiro gladly accepted. 

“I don’t know, Lance. What Pidge really needs is a break. Whether that be a literal vacation or something like an assistant to help her with everyday tasks, I don’t know. But as far as what you can do to help...” Shiro got up to leave, taking a second garlic knot with him. “Be there for her. She needs you more than anything else.” He grabbed his coat, which Lance hadn’t even noticed he had taken off. “These really are the best garlic knots in the city. See you around, Lance.” 

Lance nodded, lost in thought as he contemplated the information Shiro had just provided him with.


	2. The Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance takes Shiro's advice.

Pidge looked over at the clock on her desk. 

2:30 AM.

She groaned, rubbing her eyes and leaning heavily on her desk. She wished more than anything that she could just go home and go to bed. She had to meet up with Lance for their daily run in four and a half hours, and the last thing she wanted was to run on no sleep and an empty stomach… again. 

Pidge wasn’t proud of how she had been taking care of her body in recent months, but she didn’t know a better way to do it while still getting everything that she needed to do done. She needed help, but there was no one that she trusted enough to do things right, and not enough time to do a proper screening, interviewing, and hiring process to _ find _ someone trustworthy enough to help her. 

Between writing contracts, attending auditions, shoots, premiers, and photoshoots, and handling the legal, monetary, and public realms of her growing clientele, Pidge was beginning to see that no one person could accomplish everything on their own, even her. 

“Five more minutes, and then I’ll go home,” she promised herself, knowing on a subconscious level that she wasn’t going to keep her own promise as she kicked off her heels under the desk and sighed in relief from the feeling of releasing her toes from their 18-hour confinement. 

Pidge looked at the clock again an hour and a half later. 

4:00 AM. 

She rubbed her eyes once again before slowly slipping her heels back on and trudging her way to the elevator and to her car. She was lucky her apartment wasn’t far from the office, or getting to and from work in the morning would be a complete nightmare. 

At least she had avoided the end-of-the-day rush hour traffic. 

She opened her apartment door to silence. Her dog, Rover, blinked sleepily up at her from his bed in the corner. She hummed noncommittally in his direction before heading into the kitchen to drop off her purse and keys. 

Pidge continued compiling her mental to-do list for tomorrow. She had to finalize Ryner’s contract before her run with Lance, then immediately after she had to meet up with Matt for breakfast (a rare event for her to sit down for an actual meal, but it was her brother and they only got to meet up once every two weeks, so she allowed herself the luxury), and then she had to rush down to the office to grab the documents for the _ ‘Riptide 2’ _ movie that Lance still needed to finish signing, and then run off to supervise his shoot at Keith’s studio to make sure he didn’t cause any more trouble in the meantime. All before 10 AM. The afternoon was a whole new circle of hell.

Pidge glanced at her watch.

4:45 AM. 

Forgoing her shower, and telling herself she’ll take one after the run in the morning (another statement that she recognized as a blatant lie), she quickly changed into her pajamas and crawled into bed. As she opened her and Lance’s message thread to tell him the plan for tomorrow, she was met with a slew of texts. Ranging from _ “I finished updating Twitter. I should be done with Instagram by tomorrow evening” _ to memes about him and his role in _ ‘Riptide’ _, to a serious article about how sea turtles are dying in the ocean due to pollution. The last text, however, immediately caught her attention, not only due to its content but due to the fact that it was sent long after when Lance normally goes to bed. 

Lance (11:35 PM): What do you think about some vacation time?

\------------------------------

They were a mile into their run when Pidge brought up his text from the previous night, and honestly Lance was surprised she lasted as long as she did with the obvious “I don’t like it” tone she was displaying while they ran. Then again, it probably didn’t help that he knew she hadn’t eaten anything that day, and that she had to take almost two steps for every one of his, which only further contributed to her exhaustion. 

“I can’t believe you want to take vacation time. You already took four months off between when _ ‘Riptide’ _ was released and when you started shooting this movie. You need zero more vacation days.”

Lance glanced over at her, confused. He slowed his pace down to a brisk walk, because this conversation was obviously going to take a while. Pidge slowed down to match him, breathing heavier than usual at this point in the run. Her sleeping and eating habits were starting to catch up with her and Lance could tell. 

“What do you mean I don’t need any more vacation time? I wasn’t talking about me. I’m saying _ you _should take some vacation time.”

Pidge’s face gained some color, and Lance had known her long enough to know that was the only sign of embarrassment that would show through. “Oh.” was all she said. 

“You’re working yourself too hard, Pidge. Shiro told me that you haven’t been showing up to family stuff, and that’s not like you. Even Keith has mentioned on occasion that he’s worried about you, and you know how rare it is for us to have a civil conversation.”

Pidge looked down at the pavement as they walked and remained silent for several minutes. Lance hoped that this meant she was about to admit to needing a break, but as usual, he had no clue what was going on inside her head.

“Pidge?”

“We’ve been walking for a while, we should pick up the pace.” Pidge sprinted down the pathway, and it was immediately obvious to Lance that she was avoiding this conversation. 

“Hey!” he shouted as he ran to catch up with her.

On a normal day, Pidge was perfectly capable of keeping up with Lance despite her short legs, but when she hadn’t been taking care of herself, it was only a few seconds before he caught up to her, catching her by the arm and gently pulling her to a stop. Both of them were breathing heavily. 

“Pidge… What the heck… What’s wrong with you?” he got out between huffs. 

Pidge pulled her arm out of his grasp and, throwing a glare up at him, screamed, “This is none of your business, Lance! My health and wellbeing are no concern of yours, and I don’t understand why everyone keeps bringing them up. What do you expect me to do, huh? Eat three meals a day and get eight hours of sleep _ every night _?” She said it in an incredulous tone, as if asking someone to take care of their basic needs was a preposterous notion. 

“Yes! That’s exactly what I expect you to do! And of course it’s my business. Not only because you technically work for me and I want to make sure you can continue to do that, but also because we’re _ friends _, Pidge! I care about you!” He was shouting and he knew it, but what she had said got under his skin in a way that he normally never allowed things to. She acted like she was infallible, but Lance knew that as strong as she was, anyone treating themselves that way would burn out eventually.

There were a few seconds of silence as their breathing slowly calmed down from their sprinting and shouting. 

“I don’t need you to take care of me, Lance.” She said it softer, the yelling portion of the argument finished.

“Yes, you do. And you’re going to let me. I’ve already booked the plane tickets.”

She was obviously confused again. “What?” 

“Two weeks.” Lance held up two fingers as a visual. “After filming wraps up on this current movie with Keith, we’re going on vacation. You’re not going to bring any work, and you’re going to enjoy it. I reserved an activities package and everything.”

“I’m not going on vacation. And even if I wanted to go on a vacation, what makes you think that I would want _ you _there?”

“You can’t fool me, Pidge. If I were to set you up on vacation and then let you go alone, you’d just bring work and completely ignore the ‘vacation’ aspect of whatever resort I sent you to, so I’m going with you.”

“I can’t just leave for two weeks, Lance, I have things that need to be done. You can’t just…”

“Already taken care of. I talked to your brother, and he said he’s willing to take over the work that needs to be done during the two weeks, and he and Shiro both agreed to look into hiring an assistant for you while we’re gone. I know you, Pidge, and I know your brother is the only person you’d trust to handle things correctly. You and your color-coded systems and whatnot.”

“What about Rover? I can’t just leave him alone for that long.”

“Keith.” Keith lived in the same apartment complex as her, and Rover tolerated him, though not as much as he liked Lance. 

Pidge was speechless. Lance really had thought of everything, and Pidge needed to find a way out of this soon or else she was going to get stuck on a vacation with Lance of all people. Pidge crossed her arms over her chest.

“Where are we going on this supposed vacation?” She rapidly pointed a finger at him, “That I am not by any means agreeing to, of course.” 

Lance only smirked at her. “Cuba. We’re going to a five-star resort in sunny Havana for a full two weeks.”

Pidge cursed under her breath. Lance had her cornered. He knew how much she wanted to visit Cuba, especially after all of the stories he had told her about his family and the city and the food and the beaches.

She sighed heavily, feeling defeated. “Fine. I guess we can go on this supposed vacation.” Lance literally jumped up into the air and whooped with joy at her submission. Pidge interrupted him, “But if anything goes wrong, I’m quitting.”

Lance just smirked at her again and gently nudged her shoulder with his own as they continued walking once more. They’d have to cut their run short this morning, but Lance was in too good of a mood to care, and Pidge was starting to feel queasy from her night of little sleep and lack of food. Lance laughed, “You wouldn’t quit. After all, who else do you know would plan on taking you on an all-expenses-paid trip to Cuba with them?” 

Pidge grumbled as Lance laughed again. She was going to kill her brother at breakfast after this. 


	3. The Second... Less Pleasant... Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Vacation begins.

Before they parted the day Lance proposed a vacation, Pidge had made him promise that if she took better care of herself in the meantime before they were supposed to leave for Cuba, he would cancel the reservations and let her work. He begrudgingly promised, but they both knew that it was just Pidge’s attempt to salvage her dignity on the matter. She had no intention of lessening her workload, and Lance had no intention of letting her back out of this desperately needed vacation. 

So when Lance showed up at her apartment to pick her up a week after filming for the movie ended, she couldn’t really say she was surprised. 

What did surprise her was his insistence to search her bags.

“What do you mean you need to search my bags?”

“I have to make sure you aren’t trying to smuggle any work with you. The whole point of forcing you to go on this vacation is to make sure you don’t work while we’re there. If I slip up and you somehow bring work with you, then the whole thing would be pointless and I would have wasted a lot of money. So I’m checking your bags.” 

Pidge grumbled the whole time as Lance searched her bag and carry-on for loose paperwork and spare contracts. He somehow managed to find her hidden stash of work stuff and promptly left them on the coffee table. Meanwhile, Rover stood beside Lance wagging his tail and nuzzling his leg from time to time, begging to be pet by the tall man. 

“Traitor,” Pidge mumbled half-heartedly at the energetic dog. She knew he was only this excited because he didn’t get to see Lance very often, but still. He was her dog. Not Lance’s. 

While Pidge mused on the idea of joint custody of Rover so that the poor dog could see him more often, Lance finished organizing and going through her bags. 

“Did you organize my bag?” Pidge asked as she watched him fold one of her shirts before placing it back into the bag atop what she recognized as several of her other shirts.

“Did you even pack a swimsuit?” Lance asked, completely ignoring her question. 

“No. I don’t have one,” she answered honestly. 

He stared at her incredulously. “You don’t have a swimsuit? Pidge, you live in LA. Like a half-hour drive from the beach, and you’re telling me you don’t own a swimsuit?” 

He continued to stare at her like she had grown a second head, so she batted his question away physically, waving her hand in the air and then patting the side of his head. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve already gone over how I’m a workaholic. Now can you finish folding my clothes so we can go already?”

Lance beamed. “So you’re excited, then?” 

Pidge groaned as they made their way out of her apartment. 

\------------------------------

After a six-and-a-half-hour flight, Pidge found herself exiting the airport into “Sunny Havana,” as Lance had aptly called it. The sun was blinding, but no less than the city itself. Everything was beautiful. There were colorful buildings and banners and clothes lines filled with all sorts of colorful clothing strung across the street. The people were lively and friendly, just as colorful in personality as the city that surrounded them. The ride from the airport to the resort was fairly short, but it was wonderful both in scenery and company. It became very difficult for Pidge to pretend that she didn’t need this vacation when her laughter filled the taxi and her cheeks quickly became sore from the amount of smiling she was doing, an expression that her poor face was unaccustomed to. Spending time with Lance had never been more fun than seeing him come out of his shell on home turf. His whole demeanor became captivating, drawing Pidge into the light of his expression without even trying.

Once they arrived at their hotel, Pidge was impressed with the amenities that were provided. There were at least three pools that she could see, full basketball and tennis courts, as well as a salon and spa. The two approached the front desk together, chatting amiably as they continued whatever conversation they were having in the car. When the attendant called them up to check in, Lance surprised her once again by being incredibly organized and having his order forms with confirmation numbers and reservation times on hand.

“Thank you so much for staying here with us!” The receptionist spoke cheerfully with a pleasant accent, in a way that made it clear English was not her first language. She started handing things to them over the counter. “Here are your room key, information packet, and itinerary for the seminar.” She smiled at them.

Pidge and Lance shared a bewildered look. The room key and the information packet they had expected, but a seminar itinerary? 

Lance turned back to the receptionist. “I’m sorry, did you say _ seminar _?”

The receptionist nodded again, maintaining her business smile. “Yes. Your reservation says that you signed up for the marriage seminar taking place over the next two weeks.”

Pidge’s head snapped towards Lance so quickly that the receptionist jolted. Not wanting to jump to conclusions, she simply asked, “marriage seminar?” She could hear the anger in her voice but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt; he obviously was just as surprised as she was, the shock written all over his face and a flush visible even through his tan complexion.

Lance gaped for several long seconds, turning back and forth between the receptionist and Pidge, before finally managing, “We’ll be right back.” to the receptionist and blindly fumbling for Pidge’s arm to pull her away from the counter.

Once they were out of earshot in a small alcove nearby, Pidge yanked her arm from his grasp and turned on him, livid. “_ Marriage seminar _?! Lance, what the heck were you thinking?!”

“Pidge, I have no idea what she’s talking about. I _ never _ signed us up for any marriage seminar! I just made the reservations for the hotel and booked…” He abruptly faded out, a sort of blank confused expression appearing on his face.

“Booked what, Lance?” Her tone still held plenty of exasperation, but Lance was barely listening. He rapidly started looking through the small stack of papers that the attendant had given them, seeming frantic in his search for something, Pidge didn’t know what.

Suddenly he froze, and she looked down at his hands to see that he was laser-focused on the itinerary pamphlet for the seminar that they were apparently enrolled in. The small pamphlet was colorful and bright with “How to Make the Most Out of It” written in large, loopy letters across the front. Lance looked stricken as he stared at the paper in his hands.

“Lance?” Pidge asked again, this time much softer and infinitely gentler.

He answered back just as softly, “I booked… an activities package.”

Pidge stared at him in confusion for a second or two, not entirely sure where he was going with this. If he had booked an activities package, how had it suddenly turned into an marriage seminar? Did the resort make a mistake? Was there some sort of confusion with their reservation number? Was this marriage seminar supposed to go to someone…

In a sudden bolt of realization, Pidge understood. The name of the event—while it made total sense for a marriage seminar—was also rather vague and could easily be thought to be an activities package if taken out of context.

Pidge’s mouth hung open for several long seconds, pointing at Lance for a long time, before alternating pointing between the two of them. Her face heated up with what was certainly a scarlet blush as Lance slowly nodded. A silent confirmation to her silent question. Lance had accidentally signed them up for a marriage seminar, thinking that it was an activities package.

She sighed, dropping her head into her hands in an attempt to hide her blush. Lance had started trying to apologize, but for some reason she didn’t understand and didn’t want to delve into, that was the last thing she wanted. As he tried to stammer out an apology, Pidge waved her hands in an attempt to stop him.

“Stop, just…” she sighed once again, “Don’t worry about it, Lance; we’ll just tell the receptionist it’s a mistake, see if they can get you a refund.”

He nodded, seeming unsure of what to say. Together they walked back towards the counter, and Pidge awkwardly approached the receptionist once more.

“Hi...” She glanced down to the receptionist’s name tag. “Reyna. So, turns out that we signed up for the… seminar on accident. Is there any way we can get a refund?”

“Let me check for you,” Reyna nodded pleasantly, turning her gaze to the computer in front of her. There was a long moment where she searched through her computer. Pidge grew more and more nervous the longer she looked and the more concerned her expression grew.

Reyna turned her gaze back to Pidge and Lance with an apologetic smile, and Pidge’s heart sank. “Unfortunately, if you remove yourself from the seminar, you will lose your room reservations, and we have no other rooms available…” Pidge stopped paying attention after that, thinking that this was it. Just as she was getting used to the idea of a vacation, they ended up having to fly right back to LA and go directly back to work.

Lance set his hand on her shoulder, and she became aware that he had been speaking, “…right back.” And then he led her back over to the little alcove where they had just spoken.

“What just happened?” Pidge asked, confused as to why they needed to talk again when everything should already have been decided. There were no extra rooms. They couldn’t stay.

“Pidge…” He had his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture, looking at her like he was trying to catch a small animal he had cornered. She didn’t appreciate the comparison. “Here me out.”

Pidge gave him a skeptical look, but gave a small nod for him to continue. She had learned over the years that the most important thing to Lance was to be heard, and Pidge had also learned that there was a great deal of intelligence trapped inside his head; it was rarely a waste of time to hear him out.

“Pidge, we could do this...” He still looked unsure about how he wanted to articulate his thoughts. There was something he wanted to say, and Pidge assumed it would be something he didn’t know whether she would be on board with.

“We could do what, Lance?” she prompted, trying to help his thinking process along.

It took him another several long seconds to get everything together. “We could do this, Pidge. We can’t get out of the seminar, but that may not be a problem. We can just go.”

“Go where?”

Lance’s face slowly broke out into a smile, becoming more confident as he grew more accustomed to the idea he was trying to convey. “To the seminar. We can pretend to be a couple and go. It’s not like it’s going to be an all-day thing, and then we’d be able to stay and enjoy our vacation.”

“But we aren’t actually a couple, Lance!” Pidge felt her face heat up slightly at the thought of Lance and her being a couple. She didn’t feel that way towards him, but it was an awkward notion.

“No one else knows that!” Lance was beaming now. “Come on, Pidge. We’re on vacation. In Cuba! I know you’ve always wanted to do this, and this might be the only way to do it.”

Pidge wasn’t sold on the idea. It was one thing for friends to come on vacation and pretend to be a couple as opportunity required. It was a completely different thing for coworkers, as close as they were, to pretend to be a couple as opportunity required. If you could even call them coworkers. In actuality, Pidge worked _ for _Lance, which only made the situation weirder. The situation also required them to not only say they were a couple, but act like a couple as well, which would entail much more casual intimacy than the two normally partook in.

Her indecision must have shown on her face, because Lance approached slowly, and gently placed his hands on her upper arms. “Pidge, honey, baby,” he crooned in the tone of voice which he always used. It comforted her to hear those familiar terms of endearment; they wouldn’t be weird for her to hear them since he often referred to her in that way. “Trust me. I promise that if it gets too weird or you’re uncomfortable, everything will stop immediately, but I really want to do this vacation for you. And if acting like a couple is what it takes to do that, then by all means that’s a small, painless price to pay.” He gently rubbed her arms, rubbing small, comfortable circles into her shoulders while he awaited her response.

Pidge trusted Lance. Sometimes she could only trust him to be silly and get himself in trouble, but she had known him long enough to see that he was sincere in this and that she could whole-heartedly trust him. So she reached up, held his forearms, and gave him a reassuring smile. “All right, Lance. I’ll go along with it this time. But no funny business. We aren’t an actual couple.”

Lance released her to cross his heart, lifting his other hand as if taking an oath. “I swear I’ll be the most respectable gentleman you’ve ever had the pleasure of being fake-engaged to.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Pidge shoved him, trying to hide the smile she couldn’t help.

“You are the worst, Lance McClain. I can’t believe we’re engaged.” Lance laughed at her antics, knowing full well that she wasn’t truly upset with him.

Together they walked back to the reception desk and told Reyna that the seminar was fine. They then were able to finally take their bags to their room.

As they walked in, they both came to a stop. The room was beautiful. To their right were a modern kitchen with a sink, a microwave, and a full-size refrigerator. To their left was a small living room area, which contained the television, a small coffee table, and a comfy-looking loveseat. However, what lay in the back of the room presented a bit of a problem. In the back of the room was a door leading to a bedroom—_ one _ bedroom—which contained a king-size bed. _ One _king-size bed.

Pidge sighed once again, and Lance dropped his head into his hands as he groaned, “There was supposed to be two beds. I don’t know why there aren’t two beds.” He looked up and glared at the bed as if it had personally offended him. “I’m sorry, Pidge. This vacation is a disaster. I’ll take the couch.”

Pidge laughed sadly, before sighing once again and patting Lance’s arm sympathetically. “It’s alright. We can just share.” She dragged her suitcase over towards the bed. “It’s not like we’re actually a couple. Sharing a bed won’t kill us.” 


	4. The Seminar

Physical contact had never bothered Lance, though he wasn’t a huge fan of PDA. Lance had dated many women in the past, but he was a romantic at heart, and no one ever lasted very long because deep down Lance knew he was still searching for Mrs. Blue Lion.

Lance smiled to himself at the old memory. He used to have a stuffed blue lion when he was a kid, and he had often played pretend with the toy. At one point he had held a pretend wedding for himself and the stuffed blue lion, and his family had frequently joked since then about how he would need to find a “Mrs. Blue Lion” to marry. The joke had stuck, and Lance often found himself referring to his soulmate as Mrs. Blue Lion.

However, walking hand-in-hand with Pidge into the conference hall that evening was altogether a different sensation. He and Pidge were close—very close—and Lance valued his relationship with Pidge more than any other relationship he had in Hollywood. But having to flip the switch and suddenly act with her in a romantic light was a bit of a paradigm shift that Lance wasn’t prepared for. It was weird, but only in the way that it wasn’t weird at all. Her hand felt comfortable in his, and despite their massive height difference, it wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable to walk side-by-side down the halls of the resort to the meeting.

Having the talk about what was and wasn’t appropriate for PDA in their fake relationship had actually been easier than Lance had anticipated. Neither one of them were huge fans of couples who constantly were all over each other, so the two of them easily came to the conclusion that holding hands and wrapping arms around shoulders or waists was appropriate, with perhaps a kiss on the cheek or forehead if the situation required for them to “prove” they were in a relationship. Not that either of them anticipated someone questioning their ruse.  _ After all,  _ Lance thought to himself,  _ what idiot would sign up for a marriage seminar with a woman they weren’t in a relationship with? _

Lance blamed himself pretty heavily for messing up this vacation for Pidge and was determined to make it up to her in any way he needed to. But as he watched her next to him, gently swinging their joined hands back and forth between them with a soft, relaxed smile on her face, he thought the situation could probably have been worse.

Walking into the conference hall, they encountered a hostess who checked them in and began leading them to their table. There were dozens of small tables set up throughout the room, with four chairs around each one. People were spread out around the room, wearing all manner of attire. There were people in formal gowns and tuxedos, all the way down to people who had obviously just come from the pool, t-shirts and shorts soaked through from wet swimsuits underneath. There was obviously no dress code for this evening.

Pidge and Lance reached their table. Two people were already sitting at it, a lovely young couple probably around the same age as them. The man was tall and hefty, with dark hair, eyes, and skin. The woman sitting next to him had slightly paler skin, but equally dark hair, and beautiful golden eyes. The two were speaking closely, looking lovingly into each other’s eyes. The relationship and trust that they obviously had was exactly what Lance was searching for in whatever future relationship he would have.

The hostess motioned them to their table before leaving to help another couple. As Lance and Pidge approached, the man already seated spoke up.

“Hi! I’m Hunk, and this is my wife, Shay.” Hunk reached across the table to shake Lance’s hand, and Shay waved demurely towards the pair.

“Lance. And this is Pidge, my… fiancée,” Lance managed, pulling Pidge into his side in an effort to cover up his close call. He had almost called her his agent, as he was very accustomed to introducing her that way, and it rolled off the tongue naturally for him. However, this was the first time he had introduced her as his fiancée. He felt a flush slowly cover his face.  _ Quick, think of an excuse! _

“Sorry, I just proposed a week or two ago, so I’m still getting used to calling her my fiancée instead of my girlfriend,” Lance saved as he and Pidge sat down.

“Aw, that’s so sweet. How did you propose?” The woman, Shay, asked innocently. Lance gave his best actor smile while all sorts of alarms were going off inside his head. They really should have expected this. Really should have come up with a story for this. 

“Well…” Pidge started, looking up at Lance with a slightly panicked expression, “He came by my office one day and proposed.” 

Lance was slightly offended by the simplicity of his supposed proposal, so he decided to jazz it up a bit. “You make it sound so boring, Pidge.” He gently ruffled her hair. “I performed an entire k-pop routine of her favorite song with her brother and a bunch of our friends.” 

Pidge glared at him, but he pointedly ignored it. 

Before they could get themselves any deeper into trouble, everyone else began clapping, drawing the attention of their table towards the front. Lance was genuinely surprised to see Allura appear on stage and begin greeting everyone. 

She made several announcements after welcoming, and as she talked Lance realized that he had begun to stare at her rather dazedly. He came back to reality to Pidge nudging him in the side with her elbow. 

“You’re drooling,” she teased, leaning in so that Hunk and Shay wouldn’t hear. 

“Well excuse me for admiring the beauty before me,” he defended himself lightheartedly, draping an arm around the back of her chair to better be able to lean in and whisper with her. He had had a crush on Allura a long time ago, when they had starred in a movie together, but he had long since gotten over her. It didn’t help, however that…

“You know she’s married,” Pidge spoke once again with a frustratingly smug look on her face. Lance didn’t have time to dissect why she might have reason to be smug before the expression disappeared. 

He threw a deadpan look back in her direction. “It’s not my fault she has horrible taste in men.” 

“Be nice, Lance. I know you two are friends, even if neither of you will admit it.” 

“ _ We  _ are friends, Pidge.  _ Shiro  _ and I are friends.  _ Keith _ and I are mortal enemies.”

Pidge laughed quietly under her breath. Lance smiled down at her, glad to see her finally relaxing and enjoying herself.  _ Especially  _ at Keith’s expense.

It wasn’t long before Allura called up the man in question. After all, who showed up to run a marriage seminar without their spouse? Keith had dressed up for the occasion with a button-up shirt and slacks but had done little to nothing with that horrible mullet of his. When Keith’s eyes began to scan over the gathered guests, Pidge and Lance both suddenly found the floor incredibly interesting.

Lance leaned over to whisper in Pidge’s ear, “I swear if he doesn’t cut off that awful mullet, I’m going to sneak into his hotel room and shave it off for him.” 

Pidge laughed a little louder at that, and it caught Hunk’s attention. Lance and Pidge silently decided they were done joking for the night, and continued listening to the first seminar in comfortable silence. Lance’s arm remained around her shoulders. 


	5. The Realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> General Vacation Montage Part 1

Pidge hated admitting that she was wrong, especially when doing so also meant that Lance was right. But she had to concede this time because Lance had been _ so _right. Pidge had needed this. The vacation had been well-deserved and desperately needed, and Pidge had never been more grateful to Lance than she was during the first week of their vacation. 

The seminar had been interesting… mostly in a good way. There was a meeting in the morning where they would tackle a topic each day. Allura would get up and introduce the topic before everyone split up into their respective couples to talk about the given subject for a half-hour or so before returning to the main hall for closing remarks. The topics covered were blessedly pretty vague, such as “talk about your biggest pet peeves about each other” or “what is one aspect of your marriage that you wish you could improve.” Pidge and Lance found that for most topics they could talk about their professional/platonic relationship, and for those that pertained specifically to marriage, they could talk about a hypothetical future marriage. It was refreshing to talk to Lance like this, when he was so open and happy, and not hidden under the “actor Lance” persona. 

Once finished with the morning meeting, the rest of the day was theirs to enjoy. And holy crow was there all kinds of things to enjoy. The place was like Comic Con on Caribbean steroids. There were a total of 7 pools with various purposes, including one with several water slides attached, a high dive pool, a pool bar, and a pool that bled directly into the ocean. There were multiple ballrooms with various events throughout the day, from dance lessons to craft making to karaoke. There was a fully-functioning spa with mani-pedis and couples’ massages, and at least three fully functioning restaurants on the premises. When Lance promised a vacation, he apparently delivered. 

In the evenings, couples met up in pairs at their assigned tables, just as they had the first night. Every night, the guest speaker for the seminar, Dr. Slav, came up and gave a small talk. Most of his talks were deeply rooted in theoretical physics, which often required explaining for Lance, but Dr. Slav was always able to bring the topic back around to marriage somehow. Pidge rather enjoyed his talks. The rest of the period was spent simply talking amongst themselves. Hunk and Shay were wonderful, and it didn’t take long for it to come out that Lance was in fact Lance McClain: famous movie star, and that Hunk was in fact Hunk Garrett: famous international chef. Shay was also famous in her own right: an up-and-coming fashion mogul, making Pidge feel somewhat like the black sheep of the group, being the only one who wasn’t a well-known personality. She felt slightly better, however, whenever Lance talked about her. Pidge found it funny how often she forgot Lance was an actor, because when he talked about her, he made her endeavors sound like those worthy of Nobel prizes. She knew what her accomplishments actually looked like, but it was still flattering to hear how much he was impressed by what she does. Pidge was often red during dinner. Hunk and Shay mentioned more than once that their chemistry as a couple was wonderful, and that they had something special. Pidge felt horrible lying to them, but she couldn’t argue with them that she and Lance had a special relationship, whether platonic or romantic. 

The two learned early in the week that it was best to stay together, since there were countless couples participating in the marriage seminar that they could run into throughout the day. The last thing they wanted was to be cornered and have to make up a story regarding their relationship that the other wasn’t privy to. Almost without discussion, they began planning their days together. 

Pidge had found it surprisingly easy to act in a romantic way towards Lance, almost to the point of discomfort. It was slowly becoming a matter of personal struggle for Pidge that it was so disturbingly easy—and _comfortable_, no less—to act like a couple with Lance. She was growing accustomed to the feel of his hand in hers or the weight of his arm around her waist. The worst part was that even though she was particularly adept at noticing when he entered his “actor Lance” persona, she simply couldn’t tell sometimes when he was acting. She knew he must be acting, because he had never before showed any sort of romantic interest in her, but he seemed so genuine that it scared her a little bit. It became harder and harder to distinguish as the week went on. Lance seemed so natural as part of a pair that it was hard to understand why he was single back home. He was so thoughtful, and yet he did everything without thinking. It blew Pidge’s mind. 

Their first full day on the island, Lance took Pidge shopping for a bathing suit. They walked together through the various stores and stalls, searching for the perfect swimsuit for her. As they were passing through a wonderful little market, Lance grabbed her hand to pull her towards a stall selling small carvings of sharks, turtles, and other various sea creatures. He gushed to her about how sharks were his favorite animal, before moving on towards a stall selling sarongs and swimsuits. It wasn’t until he let her hand go almost a half-hour later to pay for her bathing suit that Pidge realized they had been holding hands the whole time. 

The second day of the seminar was the first day that they woke up cuddling in bed. Pidge was gently tucked under his chin, their legs tangled together, and their arms wrapped snug around each other. They scrambled to put some space between them upon awakening, and Pidge was likely scarlet all throughout the morning meeting, but neither of them said a word, and Lance kept his arm draped around her chair the entire time, so as far as she was concerned, no harm was done. 

Day four, while swimming in the sports pool, Pidge and Lance got into a large splash battle after losing pool volleyball to another couple in the seminar, James and Ina. They slowly drifted towards each other to improve splash accuracy, which worked well until Lance grabbed one of Pidge’s wrists, halting their splash war. The next thing Pidge was really aware of was her and Lance staring into each other’s eyes while they held each other in the water. James chimed in with a wolf-whistle, and Ina threw in a comment about how cute they were as a couple. Pidge saw Lance’s face flush slightly as he thanked the pair, and Pidge was sure her face matched. 

On Friday they woke up spooning. Pidge’s blush only lasted through breakfast this time. 

By Saturday night, Pidge was so used to Lance casually wrapping his arm around her waist or dropping a quick kiss on her forehead that at one point she almost forgot they weren’t _ actually _a couple. And that scared her. It wasn’t that it was uncomfortable; in fact, it was almost the opposite. Their hands seemed to fit exceptionally well together, and it felt so natural to do coupley things with him. It was the fact that she was thinking so much into it that made her nervous. Since she and Lance were coworkers and friends, she had watched millions of women fall in love with him over the years, and had watched him fall in love in turn. Perhaps that was also what made her nervous; not that she would fall for him, but that he would be tricked into thinking that he was falling in love with her.

They woke up in an embrace again the next morning, and Pidge simply hit the snooze button before crawling back into his arms.

\------------------------------

Pidge remained in steady, comfortable denial until that Sunday. They had been on vacation for exactly a week, and Pidge was finally starting to find some semblance of relaxation. She and Lance had been walking hand in hand—something that was happening more and more often as of late without either of them really noticing—down to the ice cream cabana on the other side of the main pool, when Pidge noticed a little boy, maybe six or seven years old, who obviously wanted to approach Lance. Pidge had never been a huge fan of the idea of fame, especially for herself, but watching Lance interact with his young fans had always been a guilty pleasure of hers. So without thinking, she reached over with her unoccupied hand and stopped Lance, indicating the young boy to him. 

Then she watched as Lance slipped into character. 

Lance’s actor personality wasn’t all that different from his real personality, but there were subtle differences, such as the way he held his shoulders, or the smile that meant more business than his real, goofy grin. Pidge had been witness to Lance’s formulation of this “actor Lance” over the years, and she understood. It was impossible to be an actor and be fully, 100% disclosed to the public; there were always pieces of your life that you want to keep to yourself. 

Lance knelt down as the child approached, leaning back slightly into Pidge’s leg as he caught his balance. His back, still damp from swimming earlier, clung to the colorful sarong that she wore over her bathing suit. 

The child seemed a bit sheepish, obviously recognizing Lance as the superhero, Riptide. He was still young enough to most likely not realize that Lance was an actor and didn’t actually possess the powers of the sea and all that came with them like Riptide did. 

“Hi.” The little boy spoke, looking back to his mother who had approached and was offering moral support from a short distance away. She nodded for him to continue. “Are you Riptide?” 

At this inquiry, Lance slipped even further into character, this time brandishing the side-smirk that had been Riptide’s trademark and purposefully turning his vocabulary more towards that of the water-themed hero. “I sure am, dude. What’s up?” 

The child looked momentarily confused before asking, “Then where’s your sword? And where’s the mermaid princess?” His reference to important things in the movie made Pidge bristle in a way that she wasn’t proud of. Allura had played the mermaid princess in the movie, who was the main love interest/damsel in distress that Lance had been tasked to save along with the help of the sword which gave him his powers, by the same name, Riptide. Pidge wasn’t proud to admit it, but watching Lance and Allura interact in the way that they’d been required to during filming had caused Pidge to have lingering feelings of… she didn’t want to call it jealousy, because of the inherent feelings towards Lance that the term implied, but she did feel that she and Lance had a special relationship, and due to the fact that Keith and Allura were not yet public with their relationship at the time, Pidge had had to sift through a ton of fanmail that hinted at a relationship between Lance and Allura. Needless to say, it wasn’t long after that that Pidge stopped handling the fanmail personally. 

Returning her attention back to the two boys in front of her, she caught the tail end of Lance’s supposedly lengthy explanation of where Allura and his sword were, before the child again mustered up the courage to ask for Lance’s autograph. 

“Of course you can have my autograph, little dude! What’s your name?” 

“Toby,” he said shyly, again looking to his mother for moral support. 

“Well, Toby. I’m so glad that I got to meet you today, little dude. You’re kinda like a superhero too, you know? You were really brave to come talk to me, and I’m super glad you did.” Lance continued to speak in comforting tones to Toby while he wrote out the autograph on a piece of paper Toby had handed to him. As Pidge watched him interact so flawlessly with a child so young, she noticed that instead of signing the autograph as himself, he signed the paper as Riptide. 

Pidge’s heart melted. She couldn’t live in denial any longer. She loved him. She was jealous of his interactions with Allura and every other woman he had ever acted with. She definitely wanted to hold his hand and wrap her arm around his waist for no reason at all. And she definitely wanted to participate in this marriage seminar with him for real. She often thought of theirs as a special relationship, but she now realized that what she truly wanted out of their relationship was that of a romantic nature. 

She was in too deep. 

While Pidge was having her mental breakdown, Lance finished with his autograph, and stood to continue walking with her. Automatically, he grasped her hand again as they began walking, but this time, Pidge was acutely aware of both his actions and her feelings towards them. She felt herself becoming increasingly anxious as she instinctually began analyzing his motives behind the action and wondering whether or not he felt anything towards her besides intense friendship. How would she be able to tell? Did it really even matter? Should she just enjoy his affections while they lasted? 

_ No. _She decided after only seconds passing by in this emotional turmoil. Now that she was so painfully aware of her feelings towards him, she couldn’t bear the thought of enjoying his affections here on vacation, and then returning to normal life and acting as if nothing had changed. She couldn’t bear the idea of all of his actions just being for show, while she was so hopelessly in love with him. No. Pulling away was the only option, to spare both her feelings and her sanity. And quite possibly her job. 

With a good deal of struggle, she pulled her hand out from his and pretended she didn’t see the momentary flash of hurt that crossed his face as she moved to another cabana to look at a sunhat they had for sale. She lied and tried to make herself believe that she needed both hands to fully examine the hat in her hands. 


	6. The Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is confused.

Lance was confused. He knew that something had changed, and he knew that it was most likely his fault. The problem was that he had no idea what he had done. He could tell you the exact moment that Pidge started giving him the cold shoulder—after the little boy had recognized him and asked for his autograph—but he couldn’t for the life of him think of what he had done wrong. Pidge had no problem with children, and it had even come up over the course of the seminar that someday she wanted kids of her own, so he knew it wasn’t that he had stopped to talk to a  _ child.  _ He also knew that she didn’t mind when he stopped to talk with fans, since there were many times back in Hollywood that he stopped to interact with fans, and she actually encouraged it… at least until it threatened to make them late for another engagement, at which point she was forced to pull him away, so he knew it wasn’t that he had stopped to talk with a  _ fan.  _ And they had no schedule to keep, other than being at the evening meeting that night, so he knew it wasn’t that he had  _ stopped to talk.  _ Lance knew he wasn’t dumb most of the time, but he was definitely stumped. 

It especially didn’t help that Lance had begun to realize that he had actual feelings for Pidge. Not platonic feelings. Although they had admittedly masked themselves as platonic for who knows how long, over the course of pretending to be engaged to her, he had come to realize that he was in love with her. Perhaps had been for a long time. It hadn’t come as an epiphany or some profound revelation, but being intimate with Pidge—even in the most innocent of ways—felt  _ right.  _ And he couldn’t explain it any other way. He had never felt this way before. For every other girl he had ever been involved with, he could easily give you a list of reasons why he was in love with her. But with Pidge, he came to the realization that he didn’t “like her because…” but that he “loved her in spite of…” She was blunt and borderline rude at times, and sometimes the joke went right over her head. Her feet were always freezing, and her hair just would not sit right. But Lance’s poor heart decided that he loved her anyway.

Now if he could only figure out what he had done. It didn’t even really seem like she was angry with him. He had seen her anger, and this definitely wasn’t it. No, she wasn’t angry, she was just… cold. If he went to hold her hand, she would cross her arms over her chest and pretend she hadn’t seen him try. If he placed his arm over her chair during a meeting or at dinner, then she would lean forward onto the table so that his arm wasn’t touching her back. It broke his heart a little every time. 

Lance didn’t know what to do. The first week had gone so well. They’d been getting along better than ever before, and it had been obvious that Pidge was finally getting the relaxation that she needed. Then she shut him out, and Lance is floundering. 

So he decided to put Pidge to the test. He knew that he would never get her to admit her true feelings, regardless of good or bad, while she was fully awake and too far into her own head. So he would have to ambush her while she was tired. 

His opportunity arose on Tuesday morning. They woke up cuddling in bed once again, but unlike with every other form of physical contact over the past two days, she didn’t immediately pull away, and Lance knew it was his moment to strike. 

“Pidge?” he asked tentatively, trying to get her attention.

“Yeah, Lance?” She looked up and caught his eye, and he was captivated. 

The original plan had been to just ask her point blank what was going on, but in a moment of weakness, Lance found himself leaning in towards her. He kissed her gently on the forehead, pouring as much love as he could muster into the action. 

To his immense surprise, Pidge allowed it, and when he pulled back to look her in the eyes again, her eyes shone with such love that his breath was taken away. Again he began to lean forward, very slowly, and he saw understanding flash through her eyes just before she closed them, and leaned forward to meet him halfway. 

Kissing Pidge felt exactly like Lance had always imagined it would. Her lips were slightly chapped, but not dry, and she applied the perfect amount of pressure and warmth into the kiss. It was perfect, chaste and warm and full of  _ love.  _

He gently reached up to hold her face, but before Lance even had the chance to really get into anything, Pidge pulled back abruptly, and immediately buried her face into his chest, attempting to hide. 

“Pidge?” He asked again, now concerned. 

There was a brief silence before he heard her whisper, “I’m so sorry, Lance.” He could hear the tears in her voice, as well as feel them slowly seep through his shirt. 

He hated that he understood what she meant. Now he knew that she loved him, just as much as he was assured that he loved her. But he also knew that she wasn’t ready yet. Wasn’t ready to accept her own feelings for him, and wasn’t ready to become a  _ real  _ couple. She wasn’t ready for things to change. He held her gently in his arms, comforting her, and trying to let her know through his embrace that it was okay; that she didn’t need to be ready; that he understood. 

Lance started sleeping on the couch after that. 


	7. The First Spill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge can't take it anymore

Pidge was miserable.

She hated giving Lance the cold shoulder, but she had chosen to ignore her feelings in the name of self-preservation. It had been doing her no favors. Lance persisted in making himself available, making it obvious that he wanted to hold her hand, and wrap his arms around her waist, and share a bed with her. But he never pushed her, never made her uncomfortable; not that physical contact with Lance was anything but wonderful, but he never made her explicitly say no, he always left it up to her. 

What really hurt was that after they had kissed, Lance started making his feelings known in a much more verbal way. He started referring to her as “the love of his life” when they met new people. He started telling Hunk and Shay  _ true stories  _ about how he fell in love with her. And worst of all, when they were forced to talk one-on-one during the morning meetings, he stopped referring to either their professional relationship or a hypothetical marriage sometime in the future, but rather, started speaking openly about his marriage to  _ her.  _ As in a marriage between Lance and Pidge, specifically. 

And Pidge hated that she wanted it. She wanted to be in a real relationship, and to be able to talk about their own marriage someday, but she couldn’t allow herself to. She was terrified of the prospect of dating Lance for real, but her heart apparently had other plans.

On Wednesday afternoon, Lance and her decided to spend some time separately, probably due to the recent strain on their relationship. Pidge found herself at the pool bar, playing with the straw in her piña colada more than drinking it, when the bartender approached her, cleaning a glass in his hand with a towel. 

“What’s with the long face, Number Five?”

Pidge looked around, wondering whether he was talking to her or not, before pointing to herself. When the bartender nodded, she asked, “Number Five?”

He gently twirled the end of his fantastically orange beard before pointing to her drink. “Piña colada is number five on the menu. So why the long face?”

Pidge was silent for a long moment, silently hoping that someone would call him over before she broke down crying, but when no one did and the moment started to stretch into awkward territory, she finally asked, “How do you know if someone loves you?” 

The bartender—Coran according to his name tag—stopped cleaning the glass he was holding, before slowly setting it aside to give Pidge his full attention, “Well. Cutting straight to the heavy stuff now, aren’t we?”

Pidge broke down. Through tears she poured her troubles out to this random bartender in the middle of a pool in Cuba, and she couldn’t even bring herself to care. 

Coran listened to her whole story, then interjected, “When I was your age, I had quite a few lovely ladies like yourself fall madly in love with me…” he went on to tell a ridiculously elaborate and most-likely hyperbolized story from his youth, which Pidge humored because more than anything else she needed a distraction from her own boy troubles. 

But near the end of his story, he finally grew serious once again, “...So even though I had convinced her that I was in love with her cousin, and had taken her sister to prom, I still couldn’t come up with a reason for why I didn’t like her, and ended up dating her for three years. Couldn’t keep her off me.” He paused to reminisce. “So what I’m saying is, you need a reason. Don’t waste the opportunity you have to find love over an ‘I don’t know.’ Figure out your own reasoning and go from there.” 

Pidge’s conversation with Coran the bartender stuck with her, but she still wasn’t prepared with her reasoning when Lance confronted her about it the next morning during talk time. 

“Why don’t you want to be with me, Pidge?” Lance started point-blank, leaving little to no room for misinterpretation. 

Pidge panicked. 

Her mouth gaped open for several long seconds, while Lance just stared at her, waiting patiently for a response.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” she said tensely, avoiding eye contact with him. 

“That’s a load of crap, Pidge. And we both know it. I know there’s something here, but you’re ignoring it. Why?” 

“Lance, I don’t want to talk about…”

“No, we need to talk about it, Pidge. That’s what this time is for. To work out the kinks in our relationship. So…”

“We’re not in a relationship, Lance!” she shouted, silencing him as she met his gaze with a firm glare. He looked shocked, and Pidge was suddenly ashamed to have raised her voice so suddenly. She dropped her gaze once again. “I’m sorry. I just don’t wanna talk about it right now. Please don’t bring it up again?” she begged, before slowly raising her gaze to his once more, seeing reluctant acceptance as he nodded. 

They didn’t speak for the rest of the talk time. In fact they didn’t see each other again until dinner, where Pidge was sure that Hunk and Shay were catching on to their “relationship struggles,” even if there was no relationship to struggle with. 

Later that night, however, after Lance had fallen asleep on the couch, Pidge gave into her need to be near him, and climbed in quietly next to him on the sofa. 


	8. The Second Spill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance also can't take it anymore.

Lance was growing steadily more confused as the days passed. By Friday, Lance just felt like he was along for the ride while Pidge tried to figure out what she wanted. Waking up to her curled around him on the couch was a surprise, especially after she had yelled at him about letting it go yesterday morning. A pleasant surprise, almost like an offering of forgiveness, but a surprise nonetheless. 

He was currently following Pidge at a distance as she walked around the few shops at the resort, and she hadn’t noticed him yet by some miracle. He was fully aware that he was being creepy, but he was desperate. He was willing to do almost anything to get just a hint of what might be going on in her head at this point, and if watching her shop from a distance is what it took, then that was what he was gonna do. 

“Whatcha doin’?” called a familiar voice from just behind Lance. He jumped several feet in the air. 

Turning around, Lance came face-to-face with possibly the  _ last  _ person he wanted to see. 

“Keith. What are you doing here?” He tried to nonchalantly lean against the wall, pretending that he hadn’t just been stalking his fian… his agent. It was getting harder and harder to remember they weren’t actually a couple.

“You’re acting weird. What’s up with you?” Keith raised an eyebrow, sceptical as always. 

“Nothing. Nothing’s weird… You’re weird.” 

Keith rolled his eyes, before looking behind Lance and staring at something critically. Keith’s face slowly broke out into a sly grin. Lance had a pretty good idea what he was looking at, and quickly tried to divert attention away from Pidge behind them. 

“Hey, Keith. Maybe we should go catch up. Long time no see. Let’s go, uh, over there.” He started pulling Keith away—to anywhere else—but it was too late. Keith had seen Lance stalking Pidge. 

“Whatcha doin’, Lance?” Keith asked once again, smug this time. 

Keith and Allura had actually realized not long into the vacation that they were all present, but for some reason, Keith and Allura hadn’t realized  _ both  _ couples were enrolled in the marriage seminar yet. It helped that Pidge and Lance sat in the back. Allura had wanted to socialize, but the other three were all mutually awkward with interacting with people they knew, and decided to ignore each other at all costs. 

Until now, it seemed. Lance sighed, pulling Keith out of eyeshot from Pidge, “Look man… I could use your help.”

Keith’s eyebrows shot up well past his hairline in his surprise. Lance half expected him to laugh and refuse, but Keith must have understood the gravity of the situation if Lance was willing to ask  _ Keith  _ for help, because he didn’t question it. He nodded, indicating for Lance to continue. 

Which is how Lance found himself pouring his heart out to Keith, of all people. Lance thought he must have stumbled into one of those alternate universes that Dr. Slav was always talking about, because he knew this situation would never happen in the world he knew. 

Once he finished explaining everything that had happened, from his mistake in booking the marriage seminar, to his feelings, to Pidge backing off and everything that had followed… everything. 

There was a pregnant pause as Keith contemplated everything Lance had told him. Lance was expecting something profound, like “She’s in love with you,” or “Booking the marriage seminar must have been fate.” But the first thing that left Keith’s mouth was, “Kissing her was a dick move.”

Lance blinked, and after a moment of consideration, burst out laughing.

“What!? It was!” Keith protested, knowing Lance was laughing at him. 

“Dude. You’re the biggest up-and-coming director in Hollywood, and the best you can come up with is ‘kissing her was a dick move?’” Lance burst out laughing once again. 

Once he had regained his composure, Keith continued on a more serious note, “Look, Lance. I can’t say that I have any idea what’s going on inside Pidge’s head. I’ve grown up with her and known her for the past 19 years, and I can safely say that  _ you  _ of all people are the only one who’s come close to getting inside her head other than maybe her mother. So I got nothing on Pidge. But what I can say is that you two obviously care about each other. Anyone with eyes can see that. So don’t mess it up.”

With that, Keith decided single-handedly that their bonding moment was over, and walked away. Lance pondered his words as he resumed stalking Pidge from afar.


	9. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunk and Shay decide they've had enough.

Hunk and Shay had been giggling amongst themselves the whole night, and honestly Pidge was starting to get fed up with it. Not only were they spending their last night together not paying any attention to her and Lance, but they were _ once again _demonstrating exactly what Pidge and Lance didn’t have at the moment. Cooperation. 

She and Lance hadn’t hung out except for meetings in _ days _, and she missed him terribly. 

Partway through dinner, Pidge couldn’t take the awkwardness between Lance and her anymore, and softly excused herself to the bathroom. 

To her surprise, Shay offered to accompany her. 

In the bathroom, Pidge stood by the sink and rinsed her face off several times. Her purpose was two-fold. She hoped that the coolness of the water might keep her from crying, while also hoping that any tears that slipped regardless would be masked by the water she put there on purpose. 

“What bothers you, Pidge dear?” Shay started, coming to stand next to her at the sink with a grace Pidge envied. 

Pidge opened her mouth to say “nothing,” but what escaped her mouth instead was a heartbroken sob. Pidge reached a hand up to cover her mouth, and Shay moved forwards to pull her into a hug. 

Shay whispered encouraging comments to her while she cried, and once she had calmed down enough, asked her whether she wanted to talk about it. 

Pidge figured she had nothing left to lose on the last day of the seminar, so she spilled everything. 

By the end of her story, they had ended up sitting on the floor in the corner of the bathroom, and Pidge had calmed herself down enough to talk coherently. 

Once she finished, she felt the need to add, “I love him so much, but I know that being with him is a bad idea. But I don’t know why, and that infuriates me, because I want to know!” she started crying again. 

“Oh Pidge dear, it is okay,” Shay comforted as she pulled Pidge back into an embrace. Once Pidge regained her composure once again, Shay continued, “Lance is an actor, correct? Perhaps you fear that this is simply an illusion, that Lance does not truly show affection towards you, and that it is a ruse.” 

Pidge blinked. Was that really all it was? It made total sense. Pidge had been there for all of Lance’s acting career: every commercial, TV show, and movie. Offscreen as well, where he schmoozed the press and fans alike with his “actor Lance” persona. She had watched him fall in love many times before, and she now realized that she didn’t know how to tell the difference between acting and genuine emotion. 

“You’re right. That’s it,” Pidge said, though it wasn’t said with the triumph of discovery, but with the sadness of lost opportunities instead. 

“Hear me, Pidge dear. I have not made acquaintance with you and Lance dear for much time, but allow me to share this. Love is surely hidden in his gaze towards you, and one cannot fake the manner of love which I see in his eyes.”

Pidge looked up and met Shay’s eyes, seeing that as far as Shay was concerned, she spoke the truth, “Do you really think so?”

“Yes, Pidge dear.”

\------------------------------

“What are you two planning?” Lance asked Hunk as soon as the ladies left, knowing the two have been up to something for the entirety of dinner. 

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Lance,” Hunk stated, failing miserably to hide his Cheshire cat grin and mischief in his eyes. 

“I don’t believe you for one second,” Lance accused, not-so-threateningly pointing his fork at Hunk, “but carry on with your devilish plans.” 

Hunk steepled his fingers together. “So… you and Pidge…”

“I knew it! I knew it!” Lance yelled, catching the attention of a couple of nearby tables in the process as Hunk began to laugh good-naturedly. 

“But seriously,” Hunk started again once he had sobered, “what’s going on with you and Pidge? We can tell something’s up.” 

Lance’s face fell, “You can?” He had really hoped he had been hiding it better. After all, he was an actor by trade. 

“Yeah. We can.” Hunk looked sympathetic. 

Lance sighed—it seemed like he was sighing a lot lately—before launching once again into the story of how he and Pidge had gotten here. 

Hunk gave a long, low whistle when he was finished. “Wow, man. That’s quite a wild story.”

“Yeah. So what do you think? I’ve never felt this strongly for anyone before, but she won’t let me get close to her.”

“Well, think about what she must be feeling right now. You’re an actor. Pretending to be in love is what you do for a living.”

Lance contemplated this for a moment. He thought he was being clear with his feelings, but what if Pidge only saw it as an act? “But it’s not an act. I mean it.”

“I know that. Shay knows that. But you’ve _ got _to make sure Pidge knows that.”

Lance nodded, but then it registered what he had said, “Wait, what do you mean you know? How can you tell?”

Hunk smiled. “You can’t fake being in love, not really. We can see it in the way you two interact with each other.”

\------------------------------

Pidge returned to the table with Shay a few minutes later. Almost immediately after returning, Pidge turned to Lance. “We need to talk.”

Lance held her gaze for a moment before slowly nodding his head. “Yeah. Yeah, we do.”

They both turned to Hunk and Shay and said their goodbyes. They exchanged contact information and promised to keep in touch, and then Pidge and Lance snuck out of the final meeting early. 

While they walked back to their room, Pidge reached for Lance’s hand. She was already insanely nervous about the conversation to be had anyway; what was another reason for butterflies to hold a rave in her stomach? Lance caught her eye with a surprised look, but made no comment other than giving her hand a light squeeze. 

Lance entered the room first, and Pidge shut the door behind them. She had barely gotten it closed before she blurted out, “I’m scared, Lance.” 

Lance stared, confused. “What do you mean you’re scared?” He had walked several steps into the room that they had called home for the past two weeks, but now he took a tentative step back towards where she leaned against the door. 

Pidge took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in her throat before continuing, “I’m scared that this will all go away. I’m scared that even if this is real and we’re not just playing the part of a couple in love, that it’s just a getaway romance, and it will all disappear like smoke when we get back to LA.

“I’ve been with you the whole time, Lance. Through thick and thin it’s been you and me against the film industry. I’ve been there for every triumph, every heartbreak. I’ve watched you fall in love a million times over, both on an off screen. How am I supposed to know whether this is real or not?” Pidge noticed that she had begun to cry again, and she frantically wiped at her eyes. 

Lance took several more steps forward until he was standing right in front of her. He slowly reached up to cup her face, wiping away her tears with gentle hands. 

“Hey,” he whispered, prompting her to meet his eyes. “I love you.”

Pidge’s heart skipped a beat at his confession, but he wasn’t finished. 

“You’re right; you’ve been there for everything. For the last eight years you’ve been the only person in my life that I know I can depend on, no matter what. I’ve never felt this way about anyone else before, Pidge. I can’t promise that everything will work out, and I can’t promise that nothing will change. But I promise that I know how I feel about you, and no matter what happens, you will always have a place by my side.”

Pidge laughed through her tears, and Lance gently leaned their foreheads together. “How can you be so sure, Lance? How can I know that you really love me?” 

He smiled. “You’ll just have to let me prove it to you.”

She let out a small laugh once again, before reaching up to place her arms around his neck and more firmly press their foreheads together. 

Lance’s breath caught, then he softly whispered, “Pidge, can I kiss you?” 

They held each other’s gaze for a long, silent moment before Pidge slowly nodded, and they once again met in the middle. 


	10. The Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance has yet another surprise.

Lance was incredibly nervous. He fiddled with the box in his pocket, his hands desperate to do something while he waited for Pidge to arrive. 

“Relax, Lance. What could she possibly say?” Matt had snuck up beside him, heartily slapping him on the back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiro running Keith through the moves one last time. 

“She could say no,” Lance deadpanned, staring Matt dead in the eye and trying to convey the amount of nerves that were currently on end. 

Matt chuckled. “She won’t say no. Except possibly to tease you.” 

“That’s what I’m worried about!” Lance yelled, exasperated. 

It had been nearly a year since the marriage seminar in Havana. Since returning home, Lance had been working every day to prove his affections to Pidge. He stood and kissed her whenever she entered the room—a habit that he knew she secretly enjoyed—and he constantly kept a hand on her at all times, whether it be leading her by the small of her back, draping an arm over her chair, or simply holding her hand. He loved her, and he had never been happier than when they were together. 

It hadn’t taken long for the paparazzi to get ahold of her name, especially since they made no attempt to hide their relationship from the public. She became America’s Heartthrob’s Girlfriend, but it wasn’t long before she became America’s Sweetheart all on her own. She had handled the press with infinite grace. Not that he was surprised; she had been his agent for over nine years by now after all. 

“Everything will go splendidly, Lance dear.” Lance heard Shay’s pleasant voice from the video screen behind them. Hunk and Shay as well as Lance’s parents were on standby via video calls, and Pidge’s parents were standing in the corner next to the door, ready and waiting to video the entire thing. 

“I sure hope so, Shay.” 

It wasn’t long before she arrived. Dressed in her standard business casual pantsuit, she had coffee in one hand and her phone in the other, answering emails no doubt. Lance waited for the surprise to register on her face at the prospect of everyone she loved being in her office at 7 AM before he signalled for Keith to start the music. 

Set to her favorite song, Shiro and Lance had choreographed a K-pop-worthy dance routine, which they, along with Matt and Keith, now performed flawlessly. While the lyrics played on, Lance was struck with just how perfect they were for the two of them. “ _ Don’t Let Me Down _ ” had a profound message while still retaining the strong baseline and EDM influence that Pidge loved, not to mention that it was great to dance to. 

Pidge was crying by the time they finished their dance, with Lance on one knee holding a ring box towards her. She could barely speak, so she just nodded, allowing Lance to slip the ring onto her finger. He sprang upwards, scooping her up into his arms and spinning her in a circle to the sound of their friends’ and families’ applause, kissing her deeply on her way back to her feet. 

“You dork,” she said once she regained speech, “I can’t believe you actually performed a K-pop routine to propose to me.”

Lance laughed. “I actually have one more surprise for you.” He reached into his other pocket, pulling out two slips of paper. 

“What is this?” she asked, examining the slips to discover they were two plane tickets. In big, bold letters the destination read:  **Havana, Cuba** . 

“We’re going on vacation. And I booked an activities package.”


End file.
